Listening to 70's sitcom theme songs, do you remember how shows were about workers?

[closeupready]

Like Good Times - a minority family being raised in Cabrini-Green. Alice, a waitress. Laverne & Shirley - brewery workers. Welcome Back Kotter - a teacher in Brooklyn.

Why is it now we only have shows about high fashion designers and rich people in huge homes?

And I'm watching the Mary Tyler Moore intro and I'm laughing because I remember how my brothers and I used to make fun of that Margaret Thatcher looking woman in the blue head scarf behind MTM as she throws her hat in the air. LOL :rofl:

[TorchTheWitch]

1. they were much more about the average person/family

then what is now much more about what the average person/family would like to be. That seemed to change abruptly with the onset of Reagan. I always did think that it was part of the whole Reagan era con.

[chollybocker]

2. Taxi - Cabbies and their ruthless boss.

All in the Family - Archie worked construction and Mike was a teacher.

Edit: Also, Sanford & Son - father & son trash pickers constantly trying to beat "the man."

Quite a difference from today; Ugly Betty working at Vogue, or Two and a Half's chiropractor and songwriter.

Interesting...

[HEyHEY]

3. I always saw that as lazy employees and their benevolent, abused bosses!

;-)

[chollybocker]

4. lol.

I bet Louis De Palma had Ayn Rand on his bedstand. :rofl:
And Louis hired Latka and the Reverend just for the government benefits. :rofl:

[HEyHEY]

5. He was helping them get a greencard and start a new life! What a guy!

[chollybocker]

6. And George Jefferson would be just the kind of guy to report him to the DNS, too.

Meanwhile, his son Lionel is all set up to inherit the dry cleaning business, 100% scott-free! Rampant nepotism in bell-bottoms, I say.

:)

[Phentex]

7. I thought everyone worked in forensics or law enforcement...

whoooooo are you? whoo hoo who hoo?

[closeupready]

8. There are a couple occupations which have seemed to provide steady fodder for

prime time TV - doctors (Marcus Welby, Trapper John, Quincy, Grey's Anatomy), lawyers (Perry Mason, LA Law, and more recently that Rob Lowe show), police officers and private detectives.

But it just seems like, as someone else posted, shows from before Reagan were much more about average, middle-class people in humble homes and with normal lives. At some point, producers got the idea that viewers didn't want that. So of course, what we have now is shows with characters who live glamorous lives and enact dreadfully-written scripts.